The Hills Are Burning

The Obama campaign has reached the point of assured victory, as long as Obama doesn't
suddenly openly support killing puppies and banning chocolate-chip cookies. Even if Hillary insists on finding a way to overturn a pledged delegate lead and risk the implosion of the Democratic Party, enough people in the remaining states will be turned off by her attempts that they will go towards Obama, making the lead insurmountable.

So please excuse me for taking an inordinate amount of pleasure in killing time between classes by watching the commentary on certain pro-Hillary websites turn vile, ignorant, and generally ridiculous. Some, probably most, Hillary supporters are starting to concede that things aren't going their way. Many of them express disappointment, but see the world hasn't ended. And wherever this kinder group is, it is not on these websites. These supporters cannot and will not concede, and seem to motivate themselves by upping their negativity and condescension of all non-supporters.

These comment threads lend a fascinating look into the psychology of rejected hopes and lost perspectives. The lesson here? Even though giving into your most negative mindset might be the easiest and most fun thing to do, it may cause you to act like a complete lunatic. And yes, there are Obama supporters and supporters of every candidate that have failed to learn this lesson. But right now it is the lunatic fringe on the Hillary side that grasps at negativity while staring into the jaws of defeat, making an exploration of this crazy fringe even more fun.

Our adventure today will explore the comments on posts from hillaryis44.org, an unofficial website, which I guess you could call grassroots:

h and I run the Irish 4 Hillayr myspace page, so there is one for England and one for Ireland. Satan doesnt have any support groups here that im aware of, only our girl:)

Now is not the time to give up guys–wins on March 4th will tilt this campaign back to us and give us momentum going into a key PA contest. Hillary has kept fighting for us, and she will NOT lose this contest. We are a comitted, strong willed, and stubborn bunch of people–not the type of people that Obambi wants to pick a fight with. Remember, Hillary's fans always stick by her–but Obambi is the one who's going up and down nationally for the last 3 months, depending on if he wins the last primary or not.

There are some common trends that this post makes use of, including making fun of Obama's name and a refusal to accept the bleak outlook for the Hillary campaign. While referring to Obama using his middle name "Hussein" is a popular tactic with the anti-Obama side and a lot of right-wing commentators, apparently there's some new cooler lingo with these people at the front of the movement. This includes Obambi, probably one of the more amusing attempts to paint Obama as a good-looking empty suit, but I was most surprised in the above post by the use of Satan. Yes, without any apparent attempt at irony, some Hillary supporters as referring to Obama as Lucifer, the Fallen Angel, source of the fall of man and all the world's evil, who engages in an eternal fight against our savior. Classy.

Maybe we should all stop after writing web comments and ask ourselves, "Hey, am I acting batshit insane?"

I should note that the blog which all these comments are coming from compares the Obama phenomena to the Music Man, the pet rock craze, and the Heaven's Gate cult all at once. This is their suggestion of where the Clinton campaign should take their argument. A general complaint on the site is that people like Obama because they're too ignorant, so instead of trying to educate them on what's good at Hillary, the campaign should just make comparisons to pop-culture that Obama supporters and undecided voters just haven't thought of yet.

This group has also bought on to the idea that media is biased to Obama, and they've bought on big time. Guess you can't have a fringe without an obsession with media bias.

MSNBC wants all the Obamabots watching their network for the next eight years because, god knows, it's quite clear most of them aren't capable of thought.

I guess blaming the mainstream media for Obama's success explains how he's done so well without acknowledging his actual strength. This is probably vital to the Hillary crowd, who has gone in way too deep to acknowledge that anyone could like Obama without being deceived or swindled. If they do so, apparently the cognitive dissonance would cause them to explode.

This trend of apparent deception continues to projections in the general election. Despite polling strongly showing Obama should fare much better against McCain, these fringe Clinton supporters seem to think the general election would be a catastrophe:

You don't know how HARD it was for me to live down Kerry getting swiftboated O_O and now, the most easily bashable, peace-calling, stuttering, porky-pig like, scandal ridden candidate is within steps of the democratic nomination

And, for all the talk that some Obama supporters are hurting the Democrats by threatening to not vote for Hillary, here's some proof that it goes both ways:

Obama is a cult and he likes it that way…I will NEVER vote for Obama because he is teaching our children the wrong values. That’s through threats, whinning and gang mentality is alright if you get your way

Huh. I have reservations about Hillary because she's not fighting monied interests enough and refuses to acknowledge she made a mistake voting for the war. But, right, Obama's rallies make use of "gang mentality", which is just as much of a substantive objection. So much for Paul Krugman of the New York Time's accusation that "most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody". He was writing a column against this kind of negativity and managed to fall, in a small way, into the same trap of tunnel vision. But I digress.

As much as the Obama campaign has been called a "religious movement", there's still some faith on the Hillary side:

i am now furious and disgusted with David Axelrod. I hope karma gets that SOB and his candidate too. If there really is a greater being, they will see how terrible and horrible these people are

And we would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids.

The Best Political Team of the Future

LOITERING WITH INTENT TRANSCRIPT – TUBE BALL – 8 PM 2/20/08 – ANY FAULTS IN TRANSCRIPT ARE NOT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF LOITERING WITH INTENT, PAUL OLIVER, OR ANY SUBSIDARIES – BLAME ALL MISTAKES ON OUR STUPID INTERN GREGORY – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

(Begin transmission)

Moderator:
Hey everybody, Paul Oliver here. Welcome to Tube Ball.

As we all know, the Internet is the savior of a lost and confused world in dark and perilous times. It represents the future, because it’s a tool that helps us educate the people of the world. For example, Americans were once in general mostly ignorant yet uncompromisingly arrogant in their opinions. As we all know, the Internet changed all of that, because the facts were available to everyone with a simple stroke of the keys!

As you know, everyone on the Internet is knowledgeable, open to new information, and considerate of others. I mean, why wouldn’t they be, they have access to most of the world’s information!

That’s why for our panel on politics today, I’ve invited Digg Remarks, Facebook Discussions, and Youtube Comments to contribute their perspectives on the political scene. It’s the best internet political team ever!

You see, by taking real comments word-for-word from these websites and putting them in a standard format of political discussion like we usually see on cable TV, we will have a commentary that will naturally be extremely fair-minded and knowledgeable! Aren’t you excited?!

Today we’re going to be talking about the much-contested Democratic primary. No doubt, as we’re on the internet, we will be having intelligent discussions about issues like the difficult logistics of enforcing healthcare mandates, whether preconditions should be used when meeting with our nation’s enemies, and the future of clean coal technologies.

With this input today, we can really work together to get a well-thought out vision of how the candidates can learn from the intellectual paradise that is the Internet. Let’s play Tube Ball!

Youtube Comments, it’s good to have you here, what do you think about Barack Obama’s momentum after winning ten states in a row?

Youtube Comments:
THE FULL WEIZGHT OF THE GOP PROPAGANDA MACHINE WILL GO INTO HIGH GEAR AGAINST OBAMA...AND HE WILL LOSE IN THE GENERAL ELECTION

Moderator:
Sounds like you’re leaning towards Hillary on this one, do you think her experience card would play better against the GOP?

Youtube Comments:
The Hillary "experience" - a lazy, long suffering wronged wifey barking orders to her staff & military aides while the perv-in-chief is pleasured under the oval office desk - R.I.P. psycho bitch.

Moderator:
Alright, so you support nothing but the worst within all of us, I guess that's fair. So where is Obama’s momentum coming from?

Youtube Comments:
Google, closely allied with the farthest Right elements of our society (Voice of America) is promoting Obama on You Tube and denigrating Clinton.

Moderator:
Okay, that doesn’t really make sense. Let’s talk to someone else. Facebook, we haven’t really seen an indication that John McCain would be able to make negative attacks work any better than Hillary Clinton has. Do you see the general election playing out differently?

Facebook Discussions:
The pro-Obama sentiment on Hannity and Rush along with the rest of the Corporate media is more than suspicious. Right now it appears that the system is trying to create an Obama victory against McCain for it's own purposes. The manufacture of consent continues....

Moderator:
Okay, you absolutely didn’t answer my question and you’re kind of creeping me out. Digg Remarks, throw me a bone here.

Digg Remarks:
At first I thought Obama was just an empty suit. A half-assed semi-socialist like most Dems. But this makes him a dangerous guy! And he belongs to an anti-American anti-white church. And the pastor lauds Louis Farrakhan to the skies. Right now, I think O'Bama is the most dangerous man in the world.

Moderator:
Okay, aside from none of that being true, I think you just managed to offend a political philosophy and major religion in the same statement. Well, Digg Remarks, you don’t seem to like Obama. Who do you support?

Digg Remarks:
If everyone cared less about who's popular and more about who has real solutions for America and a real solid record Ron Paul would be doing much better.

Moderator:
What, well don’t you think some of us actually-

Digg Remarks:
And if Obama supporters continue to be-

Moderator:
…have looked up Ron Paul’s positions and aren’t happy…

Digg Remarks:
…worse than Ron Paul supporters…

(CROSSTALK)

Moderator:
(inaudible)

Digg Remarks:
Can I finish?

Moderator:
FINE. GO AHEAD.

Digg Remarks:
(Clears throat.) If Obama supporters continue to be worse than Ron Paul supporters on Digg and other internet forums, he will lose his advantage.

Moderator:
Are you out of your goddamn mind?! No one is going to change their support because of internet forums!

(Pause)

Moderator:
Okay, that was inappropriate, I apologize. Let’s go turn back to Youtube Comments. Youtube, really, explain how you see things playing out in the general election:

Youtube Comments:
the funny thing is that all of these retards have no clue. obama hasn't nary a fucking chance at getting elected in a general election. you will see euro-americans who are indys voting for anyone other than obama. white americans are still the majority. hahaha

Moderator:
Umm, wait what? First of all, how do you explain all these victories in the Midwest? Iowa is 95% white and he won there by eight points. And second, Euro-Americans? What does that even mean? Am I a Euro-American? Judges?

Judges:
Yes, Paul, he means Caucasian.

Moderator:
Okay, he probably should have just said that.

(Loud sigh)

Alright, Facebook Discussions, you’re composed of college and high school students, you must have some good analysis for us. What do you think are the challenges that our 44th president is going to have to confront first?

Facebook Discussion:
America is falling into a recession and needs technology and innovation. Dubai and China already have more skyscrapers under construction. The US if falling behind on fiber optics, biotechnology and health care is 42 in the world with one of the worst obesity and life expectancy rates.

Moderator:
Wow, that actually shows some global perspective, that’s hopeful. Well Facebook Discussion, how do you think Obama supporters feel about these global issues?

Facebook Discussions:
Obama's supporters are overwhelmingly black on a racist jihad.

Moderator:
WHAT?! How the hell can you say that in the same comment? You were just showing you had actually looked at The World section of a newspaper in the last year! Or maybe you listened to NPR a car with that slightly nerdy guy in your dorm who takes everybody to Chipotle on Friday’s! I had hope for you!

(Moderator reaches for saber hidden behind unnecessarily large and elaborate newsdesk)

(Audible clanking)

Judges:
Paul, now is not the time.

Moderator:
Okay, fine, you’re right. Let’s wrap this up. Youtube Comments, any final thoughts?

Youtube Comments:
SUSCRIBE TO MY VIDEOS

(End transmission)

The People's Piñata

A college diploma does not come in a half-size. If you ask for it this way you will, at best, get similar treatment to trying to order half a Grand Slam at Denny's. You will get a confused and irritated look and someone will spit in your eggs. Half a college diploma does not get you anywhere, which is why I was happy to walk through the doors of Target this morning and begin my orientation with the red army.

This isn't to say that working as a stocker is beneath me. After all, I've worked extensively as a stalker, and they sound almost exactly the same. I just figured two years of college would give me a little bit more credibility in my job hunt. After all, what are companies looking for if not the ability to complete Luigi's Raceway in under 1:45 or make up for three weeks of sobriety in 20 minutes?

Obviously, my speed and productivity in a position of greater responsibility would make all my older co-workers and supervisors look like incompetent, lazy slobs. This would in turn create the impression that intelligence drastically lowers with age, and would then force us into a misguided society that forces everyone over 35 to be turned into part of the food supply to power the young. If I had a college degree, someone might at least be able to determine we should be putting USC graduates into the food supply instead.

I must acknowledge my potential employers for their impressive foresight in this matter, and therefore reluctantly salute them into their choice to not hire me and spare the world this bleak fate. However, until I came to this conclusion, which is as soothing to me as Jeff Foxworthy is to the hollow souls of so many of my countrymen, I was a little let down. My job hunt didn't so much provide rejection as it didn't provide anything. It was like I had fought a piñata with all my might, yet after it's paper-maché body split in half it yielded only cold and empty darkness instead of Starburst and Laffy Taffy. I was left to wonder: Would I consider working at a Del Taco? And also, did I just decapitate Dora the Explorer?

Yet, like in Pandora's box, I saw something glinting weakly inside the piñata: mid-level retail that maintains much better brand image than its competitors. A voice bellowed from the heavens, "You are welcome here. Please pee in this cup."

My Bottom Six Million

Various discoveries have managed to piss me off in the last few days. I read about how nearly 100 people died in a mosque attack in Iraq, saw another article about two Iraqis who were tortured and abused without any indication that they were insurgents, and that the Department of Homeland Security is currently trying to deport the wife of a missing soldier over immigration issues from before she was married. So yeah, the world is failing apart, war is hell, and that it would be nicer if every war was as morally clean cut as fighting the Nazis. I already knew all this.

What I didn't know is that while the world was ending, 6 million Facebook users added the "Top Friends" application, making it by far the most popular on the site. For those of you who have lives: Facebook just added an application system that allows you to communicate with your friends in whole new ways, like beating them in an online rock paper scissors game and then drawing a picture of you teabagging them on their Graffiti wall in celebration.

This is essentially how I imagined applications would end up functioning. Some people would make it so they can "high five" their friends when they don't want to write wall posts, someone would put in a little video box with the Dramatic Chipmunk clip, and someone else would add a little Horoscopes box because they don't understand or don't care that horoscopes are written to apply to everybody. The world would go on more or less unchanged.

But then a number of Facebook users the size of the population of Massachusetts, including 40 of my friends, decided it would be super cool to let everyone know who their most favorite people in the whole wide world are. By extension, this also tells us who doesn't fall into that super-cool group of people who would be chosen if, Oh my God, you were only allowed to invite 8 friends to your sleepover or like there's a desert island and then no one else but them can be around forever and ever and ever.

This brings with it a fundamental and misguided assumption: People should care.

Obviously you already know who your favorite people are. It's not like before the internet you carried around a list with you to avoid a situation where you asked Mary to come to your birthday party, oh FUCK you forgot you hate Mary, why didn't you have some kind of list with you to remind you? So apparently there's supposed to be some kind of value in letting everyone know who you're most happy with right now. Yeah, sorry, but unless I was a major North Korean cabinet official and I could know five minutes earlier that Kim Jong Il wanted to kill me because I didn't let him beat me at Halo by seeing that he removed me from his Top 8, there's no way I would ever give a shit about anyone's BFFest.

But other people who don't build a shell around their vulnerable cores by criticizing other people all the time might be a little more sensitive to being left out. And if you're really think you're doing someone a big favor by putting them in your Top 8, please put yourself at the bottom of a swimming pool.

I was looking at the Top 8 application page on Facebook, which has a description of it, a list of all of my friends who have it, and a discussion board. I noticed something interesting besides that Kendra Moore is probably going to be mad at me when she reads this. I saw that the main argument for Top Friends is that it makes it easier for people to go to the profile pages of their closest friends. That's interesting. But I found something else that helps me find friends' pages, and it tells me who my friends are! You may have seen it before.It's a pretty magical little thing. You write your friend's name in there, and their page comes up! And if you don't think of them or can't spell their name, they aren't really your best friend forever and ever world without end amen (or BFFaEWWEA). It's internet magic!

So the popular response to this kind of rant is "Well then just don't get a top friends list." Unfortunately for people who want to make this argument, the guy I found making it on the application discussion boards looks like this:

CHEK DA TYTE HAT DAWWWWG

Yeah, I won't get a top friends list. But that doesn't mean I should just sit around and say nothing while people find ways to bring out the worst sides of themselves on the Internet. This is also why I have a problem with anyone else getting the "Rate Your Friends On A Scale of Ghey to Kool" application and the one that looks like a game of Missile Command that people can play in your profile but actually launches all our nuclear missiles at Mexico. We need to think about the consequences of what we do, such as Canada feeling totally neglected.

By the way, please hose off your shoes the next time you come in to Facebook. Someone's been tracking MySpace all over everything, and once it gets in the carpet, that carpet never stops playing the Vengaboys without your permission every time you walk over it. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go focus my energies on more important matters, such as the unconscionable shortage of pictures of Colin Jones getting teabagged on Colin Jones's Graffiti wall.